In the first game, Olimar had crash landed his spaceship on an alien planet and needed to find all the parts that were scattered across the lands to repair the ship. He discovered small creatures inhabiting the planet that would follow him around and obey his commands, of which he called Pikmin. After locating all of the parts for his ship, Olimar blasted off for home. The second game picks up with Olimar returning to his home planet only to discover that his employer, Hocotate Freight, has gone broke. In hearing the bad news, Olimar drops a souvenir he had found on the alien planet and it turns out it’s worth a small fortune. His employer sends Olimar and his trusty assistant Louie back to the Pikmin’s planet to retrieve more treasures to pay off the debt.

Pikmin 2 plays almost identically to the first game with a few new twists. For those that haven’t played Pikmin before, it’s a difficult game to categorize, but it’s somewhat similar to a real-time strategy game with more focus on exploring and solving puzzles. The Pikmin family has been expanded and now includes Red, Yellow, Blue, Purple, and White Pikmin. Each color has special abilities. Red are impervious to fire, Yellow can be thrown higher and have an immunity to electrical charges, Blue can traverse waterways, Purple move slower, but have the strength of 10 Pikmin, and White are very nimble and can withstand poisonous surroundings. There will be many instances where certain Pikmin will need to be used to locate and return the treasures back to the rocket ship. Also new to the game is the inclusion of Louie as a playable character. At any time you can control either Olimar or Louie and in many instances you will have to switch back and forth between them to solve some of the puzzles.

As in the first game, the Red, Yellow, and Blue Pikmin have a home base where the extra Pikmin are stored, called an onion. Killing enemies and transporting them back to the onion will yield more Pikmin seeds. At first the Pikmin will sprout a leaf out of the ground. At this point the player can pick them out of the ground and use them. It’s advantageous to leave the Pikmin in the ground for some time because they will sprout a bulb and then if left in the ground longer they will sprout a flower. The flower Pikmin is the most “leveled-up” Pikmin out there and will move faster and attack better. There are also pellets with numbers on them that can be returned to the onion. The number on the pellet relates to the number of Pikmin required to carry it, as well as the number of seeds it will produce. The White and Purple Pikmin do not have onions so they stay in the spaceship. To create more of these rare species requires the player to locate special flowers in caves that will transform ordinary Pikmin into one of the other colors.

Probably the biggest departure from the first game is the elimination of a time limit. The day-night cycle is still present, but there’s no limit to the amount of days it takes you to complete the game. In the first game you only had 30 in-game days, which put a finite amount of time to explore and have fun. This time around the developers wanted gamers to feel relaxed and able to explore the different areas at their own pace. All of the exploring still has to be done during the day because at sundown the creatures awake and will eat any Pikmin left out in the field. New to the game are underground caves. Time does not pass while exploring underground, but there’s no way to grow Pikmin while down there either. When entering a cave you’ll want to be prepared with a proper amount of Pikmin. Lots of treasures are usually found down there, but you’ll only be rewarded with them if you make it out alive.

To extend the replay value, Nintendo has stuck in a 2 player competitive mode and a 2 player cooperative mode. The battle mode is actually very fun to play and pits Red vs. Blue Pikmin. The objective is to either steal your opponent’s marble and carry it back to your onion, or find four yellow marbles and carry them to your onion. Along the way you can gain power-ups or give afflictions to your enemy. If you lose all of your Pikmin or die in battle the game is lost as well. In order to succeed you will have to do a good job in managing your Pikmin. In Challenge Mode, 2 players must earn as many points as possible by retrieving treasures with a limited number of Pikmin, in a short time span. As you clear each level a new one will open up. This can be played solo or with a friend, but beware, this mode ramps up in difficulty quickly.

With progressive scan support and Dolby Pro Logic II, the game looks and sounds fantastic. As detailed as the first game was with environments and animations, Pikmin 2 looks even better. Part of the appeal is the real-world treasures located throughout the game. Cool objects like a Game & Watch or a Duracell battery can be found and added to the treasure screen where you can read Olimar’s journal about them. Some of the descriptions are extremely funny because he’s guessing at what the items are used for. These objects give the game a sense of scale. We now know how big the Pikmin are because we know how big these objects are in real life. Keeping in mind that the screen is often littered with enemies and up to 100 Pikmin are running around the screen it’s amazing that the game runs so smoothly all of the time. The colors in the game are very vibrant and the environment slowly changes colors as the sun begins to set. The music is very much like the first game. Some of the songs are redone and the strange Pikmin noises are ever-present. Overall the game looks and sounds great and both meld together cohesively to create a living, breathing world.

Pikmin 2 is one of those rare games where the entire package comes together so well that it creates such a fun and memorable experience that you never want the game to end. Taking the time to truly explore each area of the game and solving the game’s many mysteries should take most gamers at least 20 hours to play though. This is one game that should be on every GameCube owner’s must-have list.